For those of you that aren’t familiar with the adoption
process, I should explain what we’ve done and gone through so far before I can
get to where we are currently. The first step in adoption is to pick an agency.
This largely depends on whether you are going to do domestic or international
adoption. We choose to do international adoption because we felt like that was
where the Lord was leading us, so we began to research agencies that had a good
reputation in the countries that we qualified for (qualifications include: ages
of each adoptive parent, length of marriage, kids already in home, available ages
and health status of children available for adoption). We knew we wanted to
adopt from Africa, and we knew we qualified for Ethiopia, so that was our
starting point. The agency we chose, America World Adoption Association, is one
of the most reputable agencies in Ethiopia. We knew of several organizations on
the ground in Ethiopia, and they all encouraged our decision to go with AWAA.
We originally applied and were accepted into the Ethiopia program in the fall,
but in a crazy turn of events, immediately after being accepted, Ethiopia threatened to shut down all
adoptions in the country (making it impossible for anyone to move forward with
an adoption). AWAA held a three-day fast for Ethiopia in December and
encouraged all of the families in the program to participate and pray that
Ethiopia would stay open to allow the millions of orphans in Ethiopia to be adopted into loving
families. We did so, and in late January, the Ethiopian government issued their
decision to allow adoptions to continue.
As we prayed about Ethiopia during those two (very stressful) months, we asked God to
make it clear to us that Ethiopia was the country we were supposed to be
adopting from. He confirmed it to us through dreams, prophetic words, scripture,
and supernatural peace…it was crazy awesome to see Him speaking to us so
clearly, despite the seemingly negative circumstances at the time. When we
received the email that Ethiopia would not be closing, but instead, focusing on
building a more ethical process within the country, we KNEW that it was time to
move forward and get the ball rolling. So we paid our first big payment, and
got assigned a home study coordinator. Thus began the “paperchase” stage.
Let me just say, I have always prided myself in being good
at paperwork. It took me only one week to apply for the Texas Bar Exam. (that’s
impressive, by the way). (I also procrastinated for months before the deadline approached,
so it was technically my fault that I only had a limited amount of time). My
point here is that I thought the paperchase stage of the adoption would be a
breeze, since I had mastered the art of applying for various things over the
years. To anyone who has ever applied to take the bar exam,--specifically the one in Texas which requires a ridiculous amount of paperwork--the adoption process
makes applying for the Bar look like a walk in the park! The estimated time
frame for the paperchase stage is said to take between 4-6 months. That includes completing several Home
Study interviews, in-home meetings, getting approved by the Federal government
to bring an orphan into the US, and sending basically every document you’ve
ever collected in your life (each of which has to be notarized) to the
Ethiopian government so they can decide if you will be an acceptable parent. So
we are about 60% of the way through with all of that, which has taken us just over month and a half. Our goal is to have all of our paperwork to Ethiopia by
June (the approval from the US government can take up to 90 days), at which point we will be considered officially in-line to receive a referral for
a child.
There are approximately 4.6 MILLION orphans in Ethiopia
alone, so the wait-time to receive a referral is not in any way due to a lack
of orphans. It is more due to governmental issues in Ethiopia, and the fact
that so many of the orphans come to the orphanages with little to no background
information. A lot of the children’s parents are either dead or they were
abandoned at a very early age with no record of where they came from. This
causes major issues for effectively classifying these children as orphans (so
that they are eligible for adoption and immigration into the US), and the
background investigations on many of these children can take months or years.
So once
our paperwork gets to Ethiopia, we wait. Wait to hear news of a referral of a
child or sibling group that matches our request (which is pretty broad), which is
estimated to take a couple of years at least. We are praying that the wait-time
decreases in the near future as some new policies are implemented in the country,
but above all, we know that God knows exactly when our children are supposed to
be adopted…our trust is in His timing above all else. (and yes, it was really hard for this control freak to really believe that last statement, but I finally do!)
If you would like to know how to pray for us during this
stage, we would appreciate prayers for continued energy to complete all of the
paperwork in the coming weeks, and for favor with the federal government as our
application is reviewed and that it will be processed QUICKLY!!
Xoxo,
Lori
Lori
